Our first steps tour and our FAQ will help you a lot after registration. They explain how to customize the interface (for example the language), how to upload files and our basic licensing policy. You don't need technical skills in order to contribute here. Be bold contributing here and assume good faith for the intentions of others. This is a wiki—it is really easy.

File:Grabow_pitching_cropped.jpg has been marked as a possible copyright violation. Wikimedia Commons only accepts free content—that is, images and other media files that can be used by anyone, for any purpose. Traditional copyright law does not grant these freedoms, and unless noted otherwise,everything you find on the web is copyrighted and not permitted here. For details on what is acceptable, please read Commons:Licensing. You may find Commons:Copyright rules useful. You can ask questions about Commons policies in Commons:Help desk.

The file you added has been deleted. If you believe that the deletion was not in accordance with policy, you may request undeletion.

Wikimedia Commons takes copyright violations very seriously and persistent violators will be blocked from editing.

Please respect my request to keep discussions where they started, as this makes conversations easier to follow. I am watching this page, so I will see responses made here. —LX (talk, contribs) 19:29, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

File:Levine cropped.jpg has been marked as a possible copyright violation. Wikimedia Commons only accepts free content—that is, images and other media files that can be used by anyone, for any purpose. Traditional copyright law does not grant these freedoms, and unless noted otherwise,everything you find on the web is copyrighted and not permitted here. For details on what is acceptable, please read Commons:Licensing. You may find Commons:Copyright rules useful. You can ask questions about Commons policies in Commons:Help desk.

The file you added has been deleted. If you believe that the deletion was not in accordance with policy, you may request undeletion.

Wikimedia Commons takes copyright violations very seriously and persistent violators will be blocked from editing.

File:Levine_Serve_Cropped.jpg has been marked as a possible copyright violation. Wikimedia Commons only accepts free content—that is, images and other media files that can be used by anyone, for any purpose. Traditional copyright law does not grant these freedoms, and unless noted otherwise,everything you find on the web is copyrighted and not permitted here. For details on what is acceptable, please read Commons:Licensing. You may find Commons:Copyright rules useful. You can ask questions about Commons policies in Commons:Help desk.

The file you added has been deleted. If you believe that the deletion was not in accordance with policy, you may request undeletion.

Wikimedia Commons takes copyright violations very seriously and persistent violators will be blocked from editing.

It has come to my/someone else's attention that you have uploaded several files that are copyright violations. You have done so despite requests from editors not to do so, and despite their instructions. See Commons:Licensing for the copyright policy on Wikimedia Commons. You may also find Commons:Copyright rules by subject matter useful.

This is your last warning. Continuing to upload copyright violations will result in your account being blocked. Please leave me a message if you have further questions.

I don't understand. I thought that the license under Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic was sufficient -- it seems to meet the standard of allowing it to be cropped and re-used for a non-commercial purpose.

In fact, the material that you point me to above says explicitly:

"The following well-known licenses are preferred for materials on Commons: Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike licenses"--Epeefleche (talk) 19:59, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

When you uploaded the files, you claimed that they were published under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike. They're not. They're under the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial ShareAlike license. Media licensed under non-commercial only licenses also are not accepted at Commons, as stated (in those words) right at the top of Commons:Licensing, which, again, you need to read.

Please do not make any further uploads until you have grasped the difference between Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike and Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial ShareAlike, and please note that it's a criminal offense to make fraudulent statements regarding the licensing of copyrighted works. —LX (talk, contribs) 20:07, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Silly me. I read the actual terms of the license. As to non-commercial use, the point at issue and which use on Wikipedia would seem to comply with, it states: "You may not exercise any of the rights granted to You in Section 3 above in any manner that is primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation. The exchange of the Work for other copyrighted works by means of digital file-sharing or otherwise shall not be considered to be intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation, provided there is no payment of any monetary compensation in connection with the exchange of copyrighted works."--Epeefleche (talk) 20:16, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons are indeed noncommercial projects by most definitions of the term. However, content with licenses restricted to noncommercial use is not allowed as a matter of policy, because content here, like text from Wikipedia, is supposed to be free to use for any purpose. —LX (talk, contribs) 20:35, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Understood. So while Flickr and Wikipedia are both non-commercial, and anyone can see them on the net, Flickr is happy to rely on the license limiting users, and Wikipedia is extra careful and even though use on Wikipedia would not violate the license, it would violate Wikipedia extra-careful-policy. Hmmmm. --Epeefleche (talk) 20:40, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, if we were to put all the "non-commercial" Flickr photos on Wikipedia (and vice versa), we wouldn't have content that is more useful. We would would have (as to those photos) the same photos, with the same (no) restrictions. But Flickr would be better, because it would also have the photos that could be used by everyone other than commercial users. The effect of this approach is that great photos that are fine to use for non-commercial use cannot be seen by someone reading the article ... unless they do an independent Flickr search. That's not better in my book.--Epeefleche (talk) 22:01, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

If you created this file, please note that the fact that it has been proposed for deletion does not necessarily mean that we do not value your kind contribution. It simply means that one person believes that there is some specific problem with it, such as a copyright issue.
Please remember to respond to and – if appropriate – contradict the arguments supporting deletion. Arguments which focus on the nominator will not affect the result of the nomination. Thank you!

There seems to be a problem regarding the description and/or licensing of this particular file. It has been found that you've added in the image's description only a Template that's not a license and although it provides useful information about the image, it's not a valid license. Could you please resolve this problem, adding the license in the image linked above? You can edit the description page and change the text. Uploading a new version of the file does not change the description of the file. This page may give you more hints on which license to choose. Thank you.

This message was added automatically by Nikbot, if you need some help about it please read the text above again and follow the links in it, if you still need help ask at the →Commons:Help desk in any language you like to use. --Nikbot 00:00, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

There seems to be a problem regarding the description and/or licensing of this particular file. It has been found that you've added in the image's description only a Template that's not a license and although it provides useful information about the image, it's not a valid license. Could you please resolve this problem, adding the license in the image linked above? You can edit the description page and change the text. Uploading a new version of the file does not change the description of the file. This page may give you more hints on which license to choose. Thank you.

This message was added automatically by Nikbot, if you need some help about it please read the text above again and follow the links in it, if you still need help ask at the →Commons:Help desk in any language you like to use. --Nikbot 00:00, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

If you created this file, please note that the fact that it has been proposed for deletion does not necessarily mean that we do not value your kind contribution. It simply means that one person believes that there is some specific problem with it, such as a copyright issue.
Please remember to respond to and – if appropriate – contradict the arguments supporting deletion. Arguments which focus on the nominator will not affect the result of the nomination. Thank you!

If you created this file, please note that the fact that it has been proposed for deletion does not necessarily mean that we do not value your kind contribution. It simply means that one person believes that there is some specific problem with it, such as a copyright issue.
Please remember to respond to and – if appropriate – contradict the arguments supporting deletion. Arguments which focus on the nominator will not affect the result of the nomination. Thank you!